Food Assistance Fact Sheet - Haiti

Situation

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Three-quarters of the population lives on less than $2 per day, making Haiti extremely vulnerable to price spikes in the global food market.

Haiti also remains susceptible to natural disasters, such as Hurricane Matthew, which devastated western Haiti in October 2016, and Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, which caused significant flooding in the north of the country.

Prolonged drought conditions in northern Haiti earlier in 2018 resulted in poor crop harvests and some households continue to engage in negative coping strategies, such as eating less preferred foods, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). Despite recent favorable rainfall conditions, households across Haiti are expected to face Stressed (IPC 2) and Crisis (IPC 3) levels of acute food insecurity over the coming months, due to elevated food prices and continued impacts of earlier periods of drought.*

* The Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) is a standardized tool that aims to classify the severity and magnitude of food insecurity. The IPC scale, which is comparable across countries, ranges from Minimal (IPC 1) to Famine (IPC 5).

Response

In FY 2018, USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (FFP) supported the UN World Food Program (WFP) to provide conditional cash transfers for food to nearly 10,000 food-insecure individuals in Haiti, in exchange for participation in disaster risk reduction activities—such as rehabilitation of schools, communal irrigation systems and riverbanks—that aim to improve vulnerable households’ income and resilience to natural disasters.

FFP also partnered with World Vision to provide conditional food and seed vouchers to more than 26,000 food-insecure people in the North-East and Centre departments of Haiti in exchange for participation in communal asset creation and rehabilitation activities aimed at improving food security in vulnerable areas.

FFP partners with CARE and the Government of Haiti to develop a social safety net program that improves vulnerable household access to locally produced, nutritious foods. Aimed at both boosting food security and reducing malnutrition, the multi-year development program benefited nearly 86,000 food-insecure individuals in FY 2018.

Food for Peace Contributions

Total Contributions:

U.S. Dollars

Metric Tons

Fiscal Year 2018

$27.7 million

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Fiscal Year 2017

$62.3 million

14,135 MT

Fiscal Year 2016

$39.6 million

4,230 MT

* Metric tonnage does not reflect funding for vouchers or cash transfers.